Being Run Down Doesn't Sound So Bad

Jonathan Alter via Whitney Tilson:

My point was to keep steady improvement as part of the conversation and to raise a tonal question: Should the reward for tripling proficiency over three years be the chance to see your improvements, insufficient as they are, run down in the NY Times?

There are plenty of rapidly improving schools that would love to be run down in the NY Times if it would have meant they would have stayed open, or have not been named "persistently low-performing," had their principals and teachers fired, their successful reforms undone, their budgets slashed, etc. etc.

Neither Alter nor Tilson have the slightest idea what's actually happening on the ground all over the country.